Arizona State Parks Heritage Fund Awards

[Source: Copper Country News] -- Cobre Valley Center for the Arts and St. John’s Episcopal Church were pleased to host Arizona State Parks and State Historic Preservation Officers as they presented grant awards for local projects both completed and currently underway. The Cobre Valley Center for the Arts recently completed a $33,000 electrical upgrade with Marcanti Electric to the landmark old courthouse, allowing at last for future heating/cooling and renovation. This long overdue project was made possible by “Jailhouse Rock” fundraisers to reach the grant match amount to successfully apply for the Heritage Fund. Additionally, the Center for the Arts partnered with the Historic Globe Main Street Program to sponsor their neighbors on Oak Street, St. John’s Episcopal Church, which was in dire need of a new roof. Work on this landmark is currently underway. The Heritage Fund is made possible by the Arizona Lottery and is administered by Arizona State Parks.

Payson's Tonto Monument ruins yield fresh clues to ancient mystery

[Source: Payson Roundup] -- Like the poppies proliferating beneath the brooding 800-year-old ruin, research into some absorbing archeological mysteries has bloomed at Tonto National Monument. Many Payson residents looking for spring flowers, fishing on the revitalized Roosevelt Lake or diverted by the closed Beeline Highway have rediscovered the 1,100-acre, 100-year-old national monument about 50 miles from their doorstep.

When they arrive, visitors browse through the small visitor's center, climb the steep trail with its panoramic views, and stand in the mud and stone ruins abandoned so mysteriously in the 1400s. But few casual visitors realize that after dozing in the scientific shade for a century, the monument researchers now find themselves perched with a view of vital questions about human cultures stretching back 10,000 years. After spending most of its long history curating artifacts and keeping visitors from destroying the ruins, the park now has two archeologists on staff and deep questions to explore.

[Note: To read the full article, click here. Photo source: Tom Brossart, Payson Roundup.]

Globe Historic Home Tour shows off century-old buildings

[Source: Martin Cizmar, Tribune] -- If there’s one thing Ellen Kretsch thinks people took away from last weekend’s Globe Historic Home Tour, it’s that they don’t build ’em like they used to. The four historic houses on this year’s tour weren’t “mansions, by any means,” she says, but they’re still solid after a century. “The fact that they’re still here 100 years later, that 100 years later they’re still in great shape — though they’ve had some work done — I think that says a lot about the workmanship, compared to what you might find in some homes now,” she says. “The workmanship is just unbelievable.”Kretsch, executive director of the Globe-Miami Chamber of Commerce, says tour organizers try to find different houses every year. [Note: To read the full article, click here.]